Andriessen, Louis, 1939-2021

Louis Andriessen was born on June 6, 1939, in Utrecht, Netherlands.

He was a Dutch composer and pianist. He was born into a musical family of a prolific composer and organist, Hendrik Andriessen. He was educated at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague. In the early 1960s, he wrote for several magazines and newspapers alongside his composing work. In 1969, he co-founded the Studio voor Elektro-Instrumentale Muziek (an Amsterdam-based hub dedicated to technical innovation, experimental music, improvisation, and multi-media projects) and campaigned tirelessly to amplify contemporary music in the Netherlands and Amsterdam in particular. Andriessen’s major international breakthrough came in 1976 with the premiere of De Staat, which sets text from Plato’s The Republic. The composer described it as “a contribution to the debate about the relation of music to politics.” For the next forty-five years, Andriessen composed prolifically across many genres and forms, with notable works including De Materie (the mid-1980s), M is for Man, Music, Mozart (one of several collaborations with film-maker Peter Greenaway), the ‘grotesque stage work’ Theatre of the World (2013-15) and the Dante-inspired opera La Commedia, which won him the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition in 2011. Andriessen’s other awards included honorary doctorates from the University of Amsterdam and Birmingham City University, the Matthijs Vermeulen Award in 1977 and 1992, and the 1993 Edison Award.

In 1996, following a four-decade relationship, he married the guitarist, Jeanette Yanikian. He died on July 1, 2021, in Weesp, Netherlands.